


is his castle

by irnan



Series: mischiefmanaged!verse [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, implied cast of weasley thousands, mischiefmanaged!verse, teddy lupin ftw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 12:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/356979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That dreaded pest, the Weasley-Potterian - a greater plague than locusts - we could sell them, Teddy, <i>guaranteed to bring about a famine faster than Moses ever manged</i>! Uncle George could come up with snazzy packaging and an alliterative name for them."</p>
            </blockquote>





	is his castle

There were three things Teddy Lupin considered essential qualities his ideal girl should have: that she didn't mind the hours he worked, that she didn't mind the constant stream of adolescents that traipsed through his flat throwing cushions everywhere and eating him out of house and home, and that she was Victoire Weasley.

Two out of three, he felt, wasn't bad.

"I don't mean to complain," said Vic.

"Course you don't," said Teddy to the back of the fridge. Usually, when he was standing in the doorway, there was a lot of stuff between him and the back of the fridge, but just at this minute his view of the back of the fridge was unimpeded and complete.

He suspected there had been an invasion of Potters. They ate anything. Like locusts, or was it cockroaches? If ever the Muggles really did manage to use their technogy to blow up the world, Potters and cockroaches would survive the cataclysm. He had voiced this view to Ginny once at Christmas, and she had been excessively delighted with it.

"And zey are my cousins, after all."

Usually, Teddy found Vic's faint traces of a French accent ridiculously sexy.

Usually.

"Yes...." he said, still speaking to the back wall of the fridge. The back wall of the fridge looked mournfully back at him. Never before had he appreciated how white it was, nor how vast an expanse of plastic actually had room in his kitchen.

"Zey are _all_ my cousins."

"Zey are. I mean, they are."

"But I wish," said Vic, arriving at the point after a long arduous journey, punctuated by many pointed pauses underlaid by the sound of patient foot-tapping, "you would change the locks."

"Can't do that," said Teddy. "Pointless. They Floo."

Was the fridge defrosting? A small drop of water was trickling gloomily downwards from the top right-hand corner.

"Then," said Vic, in a voice which could have frozen the Pacific Ocean, "disconnect it."

"Can't do that," said Teddy. "Harry'd go spare."

Silence.

"Well, maybe not spare. But he wouldn't like it. And Gran doesn't Apparate either. And besides..."

Vic sighed. "You _like_ ," she said, disgusted, "having them here."

"It's not my fault you're not an only child," said Teddy.

"Teddy."

"Vic."

"I do not want," she said firmly, "you bending over backwards to keep them happy because of - j'n sais pas - duty. Or gratitude. They take advantage of you, Teddy."

Teddy straightened up and shut the fridge door with a sharper bang than he'd meant before he turned to face her.

"They do not. And if they did, all it would prove is that I have a better nature to be taken advantage of."

She folded her arms over her chest and waited for the next sentence. It generally came if you gave it a moment; Teddy had never been slow but he was always careful, and that was certainly one reason he'd lost so many arguments with Sarah back then. (The other reason was that Sarah had not cared for careful. Vic didn't much either, but she respected it that he did.)

Blunt, Teddy decided, was probably best. "I love them," he said.

"So do I."

"Yes, but Vic - you put - you have them every day."

"So do you."

"It's not the same, dammit. You have them every day and so you put up boundaries. They're not part of me like that, so I don't need to. Or want to. I don't know. It's not weird twisted-up gratitude. I'm _me_ , I'm Teddy Lupin, I'm Dora and Remus' son. I'm not trying to be anything other than who I am, and who I am happens to involve a lot of foster-cousins and a varied assortment of cockroaches. Potters, I mean."

Vic threw her head back and laughed loud enough to shake a few actual cockroaches loose from their hiding-places, and when she did that her hair fell back and danced as her body shook and the long line of her throat stretched exposed, and she really did have the most amazing blue eyes.  
  
*********  
  
The next time Dom and Lily clattered through the Floo with Cousin Scorpius in tow they found Teddy and Vic sprawled across the kitchen table snogging: still fully dressed it had to be said, but only just. Teddy was as mortified as they were. Vic was smugly not.

It was months before Teddy got another unimpeded view of the back of his fridge, but the sheer amount of kitchen table related jokes Ginny could dig out when the mood took her was astounding.

"She makes 'em up on the spur of the moment," Harry said, shrugging. "Here, why didn't you just disconnect the Floo?"

Two seats over, Vic started to laugh.


End file.
